‘This happy spot, celebrated for its rural situation, extensive prospects, and the acknowledged efficacy of its waters, is most delightfully situated on the scite (sic) of the once famous Abbey of Kilburn, on the Edgware Road, at an easy distance, being but a morning’s walk from the Metropolis, two miles from Oxford Street, the footway from Marybone across the fields still nearer. A plentiful larder is always provided, together with the best of wines and other liqueurs.
‘Breakfasting and hot loaves.
‘A printed account of the waters, as drawn up by an eminent physician, is given gratis at the Wells.’
Brewer tells us that this house was much frequented by holiday people from London.
We have noted elsewhere that Oliver Goldsmith had lodgings in a cottage near a place called The Priory at Kilburn. Poor Goldy had retired thither with the intention of practically studying the habits of some of the animals he was writing of in his ‘Animated Nature.’ His range of subjects must have been necessarily restricted, for, beyond the humble farmyard of his landlord, the rusticity of Kilburn appears at that point of time to have been limited to cow-keepers and market-gardens. It had an evil fame for dog-fights and pugilistic encounters, at which Hogarth is said to have been a frequent spectator—not from a love of such sights, but with a view to the work of humanity he was then doing, in displaying the coarse brutality and repulsively cruel features of those so-called sports with all the realism of his caustic pencil.
Many years later Kilburn lay heavy on the minds of the Middlesex magistrates, and during the first half of the present century its reputation was decidedly low, and its inhabitants, or the additional ones they sheltered, a frequent trouble to the constables of those days.
Time and the builders have amended all that, and the village of Kilburn is (1860) partly a suburb of genteel villas, and a struggling ground for newly-started professional men and tradesmen of large hope and small capital, with ultimate success as the prize for those who can play a losing game longest.
Before leaving Kilburn I may add that, in the spring of 1878, when the work of widening the London and North-Eastern Railway was going on at Kilburn, the workmen came upon a curious brass coffin-plate, bearing an effigy supposed to be that of an Abbess of Kilburn Nunnery. The nuns gave a touching reason for the dilapidated condition of their house (which lay close to the highway for wayfarers and pilgrims to the shrine of St. Alban’s) in the daily charity of the poor sisters to those of the poorer sort, a charge they were ill able to bear; and this fact, in connection with the well-known poverty of their house, exempted them from taxes to the Crown, which recompensed itself at the dissolution of the religious houses by taking the whole of the little they possessed. At this time the buildings of the priory consisted of the hall, the chamber next the church, the middle chamber between that and the Prioress’s chamber; the buttery, pantry, and cellar; the inner chamber to the Prioress’s room, the chamber between the latter and the hall, the kitchen, the larder-house, the brewhouse and bakehouse, the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds or husbandmen, the confessor’s chamber, and the church. The orchard and cemetery, valued at ‘xxs. by the yere, and one horse of the coller of black at vs. For all these chambers 2 bedsteads of bordes, 1 featherbed, 2 matteres, 2 old coverlettes, 3 wollen blanketts, a syller of old stained work, and 2 pieces of old hangings paynted,’ appear a sparse allowance of comfort. They were better off in the matter of church furniture and vestments, as not only altar-cloths, curtains, hangings, copes, which were nuns’ work, and very likely made by them, but chalices are enumerated; and they also possessed, closed in silver, and set with counterfeit stones and pearls, a relique of the Holy Cross, and a cross with certain other reliques, ‘wt silver gilded. Item, a case to keepe in reliques, plated and gilt ... and a clocke.’ These were the nuns’ small treasures, and all were confiscated.
In the ‘Romance of London,’ by the late industrious Mr. Timbs, there is a legend, quoted by Mr. Walford, of Kilburn Priory. He calls it traditionary, and says that Mr. Timbs could not trace it to any authentic source; yet it appears to have been well known to that enthusiastic collector of ancient ballads and legendary lore, Sir Walter Scott, who had written a lyrical version of the story long before Mr. Timbs produced his ‘Romance of London,’ though without publishing it. Here is the tale of its origin, according to Mr. H. G. Atkinson, who tells us the verses (which I give further on) remained unpublished till their appearance in the columns of the Athenæum, September 17, 1881:
‘My father, an architect, was a friend of Scott’s, and helped him, as a friend, in the decoration and finishings of Abbotsford. Scott would often dine with my father when in London, and was greatly interested in the garden. In one corner there was some rockwork, in which were inserted some fragments of stone ornaments of Kilburn Priory, and crowning all was an irregularly-shaped stone, having a deep red stain, no doubt of ferruginous origin. This stone was sent to my father by Lord Mulgrave in one of his cement vessels, my father having been struck with its appearance on the shore at Whitby, and from these simple, really unconnected facts Scott made out the following story in verse, which might be regarded as a kind of friendly offering in return for services rendered. Here are the lines; I had supposed them lost, but my sister, in turning over some old papers, found a copy.’